The cover letter is a mainstay of job applications and job sites, but all too often they're discarded unread while the hiring manager or HR rep's attention goes to the meat of the application: the resume. The blog Wise Man Say has a revolutionary suggestion: ditch it altogether and put that energy towards customizing your resume, making connections, or building a portfolio of your actual work you can invite a potential employer to see.

There is a caveat here—if the job application specifically calls for a cover letter, you should obviously include one, and we have some tips on how to write a good cover letter. If you're applying to a position via email, or directly to the hiring manager or company's HR department, your email or other message with your resume attached serves the purpose, and attaching a separate cover letter is just one more attachment in the recipient's inbox—one that Wise Man Say says will never get opened.

Speaking as someone who's been on both sides of this table, I can say that when I got candidates through an HR system full of resumes, the cover letters were usually stripped by the resume system, and when I got direct applications from people I knew, their resume was the important part of their message. What do you think? Do you think the cover letter is dead and gone, or does it still have a place? Sound off in the comments below.